Historian JIM finds staunch Baptist and Adair County News editor Charles Snow Harris' comments on the LW Training School's impact an example of the newspaper at its shining best, a clarion voice of unity and progressClick on headline for complete article, with photo(s)

By JIM

Toward the end of 1903, the rumor mill went into overdrive, informing whomever might take a listen that the new Methodist training school, still under construction in Columbia, would not be finished in time to open as planned early in the quickly approaching new year.

Enter the Adair County News, booming forth from the editorial bully pulpit to smack down such prattlings, telling one and all that yes, the school would indeed be ready to accept students on January 4th, exactly on schedule. The foreman in charge of the work, via an indirect quote, gave assurance that "on or before the 25th of December the college building and dormitory will be complete in all their parts and the keys turned over to the building committee." The piece went on to state that extra workmen were laboring night and day and that "No one need fear its completion..."
The article then segued from shutting down the rumor mill to articulating the News' vision of the Training School's impact. The piece, in all likelihood penned by Charles Snow Harris, editor of the paper and a staunch Baptist, ended on this high note, an example of the News at its shining best--a clarion voice of unity and progress:

"We regard the school one of the greatest blessings for this part of the State that our people will ever have the privilege of enjoying...We have no fears of its future, and while not engineered by our religious creed it is to our notion in purpose -- equal to the great need of our section, to arouse a desire for advancement with the rising generation as well as offer an opportunity for the same. No straws can thwart the destination of a stream; no opposition [can] defeat the noble purpose and results of an institution when backed by the great common populace. The school is here, here to fling her doors open the first of January."

For the fivescore and thirteen years since that fateful January morning in 1904, the doors to Lindsey Wilson have remained open. The number of LWC graduates during the 2015-16 academic year (656) exceeds the entire population of Columbia (622) when the Training School opened.